‘Empire’ Canceled After Upcoming Sixth Season

Fox previously announced that Empire, the popular series saddled with a lot of unwanted headlines in the last couple months before of controversy swirling around one (technically former) star, was returning for a sixth season this coming year. What they didn’t say at the time was that Season Six would also be the final one for the musical drama. Empire is done after one more run.

That news was announced on Fox’s Upfront call by Fox Entertainment’s Charlie Collier (via Deadline):

‘We are turning the final season into a large TV event, we are trying to go out guns a blazing,’ Collier proclaimed on the call ofEmpire’s 20-episode last round ‘You allow fans to lean in and have the ending they deserve,’ the CEO added.

Empire premiered in 2015 and quickly became a pop culture sensation; that first season averaged 17 million viewers for Fox. By comparison, the most recent season, which concluded earlier this month, averaged only 4.4 million viewers. When the show has grabbed headlines lately, they’ve mostly been about Empire cast member Jussie Smollett, who first claimed he had been attacked by men screaming racial and homophobic slurs in Chicago, then was arrested and charged with filing a false police report, only to see those charges dropped a few weeks later. (Smollett and his attorneys have continued to maintain he was the victim of an attack.) Collier said that “there’s an option to have Jussie in the series” during the sixth season “but we have no plans for that.”

Now that this is the final season though, it wouldn’t be shocking if he did make at least one more appearance to wrap up his character. Either way, the end is coming on Empire. Get ready.